This disclosure is related to cross-language searching.
The number of web pages written in certain languages (e.g., English) may be much larger than the number of web pages written in other languages. This disparity is due in large part to the number of speakers of the certain languages and the widespread availability of technology in the countries where those languages are spoken. Moreover, such pages are often better maintained and capable of providing more accurate and updated information about many subjects than are pages in other languages. Accordingly, people who speak a language that is not widely used on the web might nevertheless be interested in the information found on a web page available in other languages (e.g., English). Thus, searching the web pages written in the language used to submit a search query may not always satisfy a searcher's query, because relevant results might not even exist in the searcher's language.
For example, people in Egypt are sometimes interested in information about traveling to places that are outside of the Middle East, studying in foreign universities, or learning about famous non-Egyptian people. However, there might not be many pages related to these topics in the language used to submit the query, i.e., the user's native language. Moreover, the pages that are in the user's native language may be of relatively low quality, since the authors of the page may not have ample access to such topics. Additionally, such users may not be able to issue queries in another language because the users do not speak another language. Thus, these users may be unable to find relevant and/or quality content.